See James Franco as Tommy Wiseau in First Image From ‘The Disaster Artist’

No movie in the history of cinema, other than possibly Rocky Horror Picture Show, has reached the midnight screen, cult status level of success quite like Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. The film has often been deemed as the worst movie ever made, and therefore the best comedy, and director Tommy Wiseau has become a bit of an infamous character in the cinema world, after his writing, directing, and acting has caused filmgoers all over the world to both laugh and cringe depending on their sense of humor.

It’s because of this infamy, that James Franco and co. have begun work on a new film called The Disaster Artist, which will chronicle Wiseau’s life and process while trying to make The Room, and not entirely anticipating the reaction it would receive. Oh, and Franco himself will be playing Wiseau, in case you weren’t already interested in this enough.

In honor of The Disaster Artist too – which is the latest in a string of other projects that Franco has been hard at work on over the past few years – the actor/writer/director revealed the first photo of himself as Wiseau, and his brother Dave Franco as Wiseau’s co-star Greg Sestero in the film. Check out the photo below, which was posted to Franco’s Facebook account recently:

I’ll admit, it’s entirely possible that I love this too much, but the cheesy make-up and how Franco already looks like he’s got Wiseau’s mannerisms down, makes me more excited for this movie than I can logically justify.

This also comes following the recent reports from The Hollywood Reporterthat both Zac Efron and Kate Upton have also signed on to the film, joining the previously mentioned Franco brothers, Seth Rogen, Josh Hutcherson, Ari Graynor, Hannibal Buress, Jacki Weaver, and more. Franco will be directing the project as well, from a screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (500 Days of Summer, Paper Towns).

With a strong cast and an intriguing subject matter, The Disaster Artist has a lot going for it at this point. However, it’ll be interesting to see if it will set out to tell a comedy about the complete failure that The Room ended up being, or will try and tell a story about how vision and determination sometimes doesn’t pay off.

Personally, as someone who never completely understood the long life of The Room, I’m hoping that Franco and co. are looking to approach this material much like how Tim Burton told the story of Ed Wood, which managed to balance a comedic tone with themes of vision and fulfilling your dreams in a pretty magical way. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

The Disaster Artist is set to hit theatres in 2016.

Make sure to keep checking back for more updates — right here on GeekNation.

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I don’t know yet, but this is a question that deserves answering… Hopefully we’ll find out sooner or later.

Hookman

Cannot wait for this movie! I am a recent convert to “THE ROOM” after watching the RIFFTRAX version. Sorry guys but the movie is too damn funny on its own that the RT commentary seemed a letdown but still was worth it for newbies to the movie and afraid to sit through it. I found myself coming up with great lines on my own cracking myself up it was so bad! This should be a great, fun flick with the FRANCOS together-plus James already has that stonerish look embodied in Tommy.

Yup! The more and more I think about it, the more I like the casting of Franco as Wiseau. Something tells me this is going to be a very entertaining look into one of the most infamous movies of all time.